


If you're watching it you're part of it

by Tealot



Category: Norman Reedus - Fandom, The Boondock Saints, The Walking Dead
Genre: Family, Love and Conflict, Other, RPF Boondock Saints, RPF Norman Reedus, RPF Walking Dead, References to Illness, Sickness, You decide who's talking, You decide who's thinking, could be anyone - Freeform, no names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 15:39:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5791132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tealot/pseuds/Tealot





	If you're watching it you're part of it

They sat together, cold December sunlight dappling their faces strange, streaking gold across the floors. Cozy. Peaceful.

Together.

Alone.

The man on the couch, all but invisible beneath a comforter that covered not only him but most of the sofa, face hidden in the pillow, not much visible but a hand and a whole lot of hair.

The boy on the floor, back against the sofa, head somewhere around the mans knees, eyes fastened on the tablet he held in his hands, tracking almost tremor quick as the game drew him in.

They weren't talking, not these two, not now. They were too at odds, both with themselves and with each other.

The man, chafing at the sudden, forced down time of illness, something he typically refused to allow, to admit..something he hated with a passion. While nobody enjoyed being sick...who really WANTED to feel like ass, after all...he hated the humiliation more. It made his skin crawl, having to tell people he was ill, made him feel even sicker knowing they knew it. If he absolutely couldn't ignore it and keep going and deny it until it was gone, he at least wanted to be left alone, and he'd lie....oh he'd absolutely lie if he had to. He'd tell people anything but that he felt bad, and if the truth got out he'd never for a second actually tell anyone how he felt unless it was to growl about being AGGRAVATED. Always aggravated, irritated, annoyed...never miserable, never sick, never anything that might bring on that crawling embarassment.

So this...this was killing him. Not only was he forced into stillness...and he'd never done "still" well...but he'd had no choice but to tell people...to bring people here to take CARE of him and if he could have crawled out of his body and died he'd have done it. Humiliation absolute and complete and it sickened him in a way the physical complaints of his run down, overused, abused body could never hope to manage.  
And everybody knew.  
Everybody.  
His friends. His ex girlfriend. His MOTHER for godsake, though she knew him well enough to not mollycoddle him. All she'd said was "Good, it's about time you slowed down. Take advantage of it."  
That he could handle.  
The rest? The "How're you feeling"s that came in thick and made him feel like he was turning inside out...those he couldn't stand.  
The "Do you need anything"s that sent a sick shiver through him and he'd goddamn well say no even if he'd die because of it.

He was mortified.

And miserable, because well...he felt like frozen dogshit thawing in april on the bottom of someones boot, not to put too fine a point on it. And he wasn't stupid. When he'd found himself out of breath, and on the verge of passing out not once, not twice, but time after time after time...when his heart felt like it was racing...and failing...and his chest took on a weight that threatened to take him down and he found himself almost too tired to breathe... he'd been scared. After all, he wasnt' that young anymore and he smoked like a goddamn chimney. Truth be told he'd wondered if he was having a bunch of little heart attacks, and he'd gone to the doctor on his own.

He hadn't TOLD anyone. Hadn't even told anyone he felt off...he'd just taken himself to see his doctor, and truth be told he'd shrugged off his doctors diagnosis...and advice...and had been fully prepared to ignore it. If his heart wasn't about to give out...and it wasn't...then fuck it, it'd pass.

He'd pretty well forgotten that when someone had known you every single moment of their existence, it wasn't all that easy to hide things from them because they just KNEW, and his kid had known all along that something was wrong.  
He hadn't said anything, not until about a week after the fateful and ignored trip to the doctor, when he'd come up the stairs and felt the floor suddenly sink away from his feet, huge black flowers blooming behind his eyes, his chest imploding under the weight of a fatigue so great he thought for a minute he really WAS too tired to breathe.

He hadn't fallen, he was too stubborn for that, but he'd stopped, and christ alone knew what he'd looked like, because suddenly the kid was just THERE, just RIGHT THERE, gabbing into his ear something he couldn't understand at all, the words nothing but meaningless noise floating over the roaring in his ears and the incredible racing pound of his heart.

There'd been a fight, then, and though they didn't fight much this time it was on, because his kid wasn't about to let it go and he wasn't about to tell him....and god know how much longer it would have gone on if the kid hadn't completely melted down and gotten on the phone, something close to hysterical and crying...and this kid just didn't cry unless it was dead serious...first to his own mother, then to HIS mother and suddenly the women were on him, one on the phone hassling him with her patented "what the hell is wrong with you?" and the other in his face playing guilt as a weapon and she'd always been so fucking GOOD at that, and finally he'd told them.

Told them about the problem, told them about the doctor, told them what he'd been told to do....and wasn't.

That his options were to go home, go to bed, and stay there. Just stay there, for a least a couple of weeks. To do nothing beyond get up to go to the bathroom and to maybe take a shower if he absolutely had to. Bed...or sofa. Nothing more. Not even cook for himself. Get his own mail. Do his own laundry. Nothing. NOTHING.  
To lay around and rest and eat and sleep and get someone there to do whatever had to be done because he'd pushed himself past the point of functional. His vitals were crap, his bloodwork was worse, he was exhausted and on the ragged edge of just shutting down.  
So stop.

That was the prescription.

Stop.

Get someone in to do the cooking and the cleaning and to fetch and carry and he himself was to do NOTHING. Oh, and while we're at it, no booze and no smokes, either.

Like that was about to happen.

Or.

Check in to the hospital where he'd have no choice whatsoever.

THAT was more abhorrent than the idea of telling the whole CITY he was sick so he'd sucked it up and gone home and done nothing about the situation at all until he almost fell out in front of his kid and now this.

He was good and down, and the doc had called in a couple of prescriptions for meds to kill the anxiety this was causing him and he hadn't even had to go get them...he'd been going to go get them...because they'd been fucking delivered of all things....and so he was drugged and dopey and couldn't keep his goddamned eyes open and....

People were taking turns babysitting him.

Well..not people exactly. His ex...she was coming over and she was glad because she didn't really WANT to be his ex and boy it played right into her happy place.  
And his kid, who was just here all the time because he was and he was hovering and worrying and he'd called EVERYONE....and fuck. Here he was.

Hiding under a blanket, drifting in some bizarre dope zone, the sick anxiety gone now, artificially erased but hey whatever...aware that he was mortified but not really feeling it. But he had nothing to say.

Even doped, he was pissed off. And he felt like ass.

And the boy.  
Never particularly quiet, he was now, struggling with a guilt his dad would never know about....of course he knew about it already and wisely enough chose to just keep quiet about it...because this, this thing with his dad.

It worried him, sure. It did. But it didn't....exactly...BOTHER him.  
Because he was HERE. He was here and he was STAYING here. For at least a couple of weeks there would be no work, no travel, no "things" and if there was a phrase he hated more than "Yeah, I have this thing to do..." he didn't know what it could possibly be. 

It wasn't that he was glad he was sick...he wasn't...and god knew it had scared him beyond words when he'd seen him come up the stairs and just....he'd thought for a minute that he'd died on his feet he'd gone so white...not pale, either...but flat, dead, waxy white, and his eyes had rolled back and that'd been it, he'd freaked right out, panicked, almost called 911, only some tiny voice of reason telling him that his dad was still standing and would likely kick his ass if he called them for anything other than his death shifting his actions from emergency medical to his mom. She'd told him she was on her way and then told him to call his grandma...and to stay right where he was and not let his dad out of his sight. 

She'd been pissed as hell and he'd ended up feeling kind of bad that he'd called her, because nobody who was sick needed to wind up on her bad side, it was scary enough when you were great.

And of course his dad was furious at him and that was plenty weird because he almost never was....but he'd TOLD and now it was out and he hated it...but what the fuck ever because at least he was taking care of it, and at least he was resting and he was here and he was staying.

He'd horrified himself a little when he'd seen him get up and go out to the balcony to smoke. He wasn't bothering with the booze...he felt shitty enough that he didn't much care about it...but he wasn't about to quit the smokes and he wasn't about to smoke inside.  
Horrified because he was glad he was getting up, glad he was going outside, glad he was smoking because maybe that would slow this whole thing down a little more....keep him down just a little longer...and the longer he was down the longer he was here, and the longer he'd have to not be worried about him, or mad at him or disappointed in him.

His disappointment was becomming a pretty heavy damn choker around his neck and he was glad to get rid of it for a while. Damn glad.  
Of course he felt like six kinds of asshole, but so be it.  
He was kind of happy anyway. Content, even. Content to sit here and lean up against the couch and feel the warmth above him, hear him breathing, look up and see him there. For the first time in a long time there was no adrenaline running in him, no anxiety in his chest, no worry...no unspecified, weird fear. For the first time in a long time he was calm and it felt pretty goddamn good.  
The floor, on the other hand, was pretty hard and he kind of wanted to get up...but he didn't want to move away, even across the room. He liked the proximity...needed it.  
Well...

He reached up, reached behind him, slapped gently at the feet on the couch.

"Hey, you want to move your feet so I can sit up there?"

He got a grunt and the blanket flipped down, one baleful blue eye coming to rest on him.

"No. You were in on this. You can stay down there. This is gonna kill me, you realize this."

"Oh please. Holding still for a little while is not gonna kill you."

"It might, and then where will you be?"

"Rich, from your life insurance."

"Yeah? You can sit on the floor. This is stupid, I'm not even sick."

"Yes you are. If you weren't you'd be out...doin what the fuck ever, fuckin yourself all up still. Instead you're crashed on the couch. Can't think of anything much that would do that other than bein sick. Fuck, we both know you wouldn't think to just rest on your own. God forbid."

"Huh. Listen to how you talk to me."

The tone was mild but the inflection made it clear; he was standing right there at the line and he'd better watch out he didn't step over it.

"Sorry. I'm not trying to be an asshole, I just want you to get better."

"Do you, now. You sure about that?"

And here it was, why they weren't talking much, why they were about to stop. 

Both just...too at odds.

The man, point made, let his eyes drift shut again, let the vague, dreamy floating take him over.  
The boy, point taken, settled himself back against the couch, locked his eyes on the game again, let it take him.

They both drifted, the sun tracking shadows into corners, sparkling off glass, blazing color as it hit the bizarre muddle of artifacts the man had scattered throughout his home, and gradually the dreamy haze deepened into real sleep.

Real DRUGGED sleep, and while sober, the man slept as silent as the dead, when medicated...or drunk...he had a snore that would wake the neighbors, and the pattern between them now changed as the boys concentration was broken time and again by the racket and he reached back, not even bothering to turn, and whacked the man wherever he happened to reach, replying to the sleepy grunt he got each time with "sorry, but you're snoring."

He'd feel the shift as the man resettled himself, hear his breathing lengthen and grow coarse as he fell back to sleep, listen as the volume increased to the point that he couldn't think anymore and then that long arm would reach up and back and here they went again....neither of them particularly minding, neither of them particularly bothered, and for a while, as the shadows grew long, it was peaceful and the boy felt that quick stab of guilt again at the thought that he wished this could just last....

And the man, with that strange telepathy common to most parents who truly love their children, caught the thought and knew just exactly how much better his son felt with him laid low like this....how much more relaxed he was now that he knew where he was and what he was doing and that he was WITH him, and he reached down and tangled his fingers in his sons hair...didn't pull, just caught them up in it and left them there, felt his sons hand come up and rest, briefly, on his and then drift back down...but he didn't pull away. He accepted the contact and that alone was something. He'd been a touchy little kid but as he'd grown older his need for space had increased and it was just another thing they were always at odds about, as the man had never outgrown his need for constant contact.

Right now, though, it was ok, and he realized that he just might be as content as his son was.

For now, it was good, and he drifted off into sleep again, quiet inside for the first time in a long time.

He slept until it started to get dark...dark came early in New York in December...and until the snoring got the better of the boys patience once and for all, and he twisted around and this time gave the man a shake.  
"Hey! Cyrano! Wake up! You're doing it again!"  
"Shut up."  
It was sleepy and not altogether awake, but it was something to work with.  
"It's getting dark. I gotta go pretty soon. You sure she's coming over?"

The man shook himself awake, sat up, rubbed some of the haze from his eyes and threw back the quilt, reaching onto the table for his cigarettes.

"Yeah, I'm sure. But you don't have to babysit me."

"I'm not babysitting you."

"Yeah. You are."

He stood up, caught his balance, glanced down at himself clad in nothing but boxers and a tshirt, and reached down and picked up the quilt, wrapping it around himself as he schlepped out to the balcony to smoke.

"You are, and we both know you are. But..."

He drew in the smoke gratefully, exhaling with a sigh, eyes closed for a moment against the smoke.

"Since it's you I guess it's ok."

"Oh, you guess it's ok."

"I got a choice?"

"Not really, no."

"Well alright then. You're gonna go before she gets here, huh?"

"Yeah. It's ok? You need me to stay?"

He started to say no, felt that mental vibe kick in and bit it back. There was more than one question being asked.

"I always need you to stay. But it's cool if you don't want to hang around when she's here. Truth is....I don't really want her here either, but who else is there?"

"Well, there's me."

He'd have to be careful now....so careful. Since his son had hit his teens just talking to him was like navigating a minefield full of unstable bombs and old, sweaty dynamite. One tiny little misstep and it was all over.

"I know, and you're about the only one doesn't make my fucking skin crawl. But I'd rather have you here when you want to be, not stuck here because I'm an idiot and let myself bottom out."

"So if I just wanted to stay you'd let me?"

"What's this "let" bullshit?"

"I meant what if I didn't want to go home."

"Ouch, man. Geez. Kick a dude when he's down."

"I don't..."

"This isn't home?"

"Oh shut up, you know what I mean."

"I do. C'mon, it's fuckin cold as shit out here."

"You're not supposed to be smoking, y'know."

"I know, but I notice you're not hassling me about it."

"Would it do any good?"

"Nope, but that's never stopped you before."

"Well...I don't want you to have a nic fit and go all serial killer or something."

"Oh is that it?"

He was starting to feel sick, standing, and it was translating down into pissiness and they both knew it.

"I'm gonna go, dad."

"Ok"

"I might come back tonight."

"That's ok too. Do me a favor, though."

"Yeah, what?"

"Call me if you're not, so I don't listen for you all fuckin night and get all weirded out."

"Alright."

The sun faded, the room full of shadows now, and the boy flipped on a lamp as he headed for the stairs, the man curled himself back onto the couch, panting a little and hoping like hell the boy didn't see.

He waited, listening, until he heard the door close and the hum of the elevator, before he closed his eyes and let the world fade.


End file.
